SalesForce and Slalom Consulting partnership has, after an intense three month collaboration, borne fruit in the launch of the new VetForce community. The community will provide a range of support mechanisms aimed at helping more than 40,000 veterans develop SafeForce skills and certificates.

Recent demands on the US military continue to see more than 240,000 veterans emerge from its ranks each year. For many of these veterans, an uncertain future awaits as they seek to transfer their military service skills into employment within the wider public and private sphere. A number of programmes have been set up to ease the transfer from military life to civilian life, including the 100,000 Jobs Mission, a coalition of more than 200 companies that has so far brought more than 292,000 veterans into gainful employment outside the military since 2011. The consulting industry too has sought to stand by veterans, launching a variety of programmes that seek to integrate them and their skills into its ranks, including Accenture’s plan to hire more than 5,000 vets by 2020*.

Late last year, SalesForce launched its VetForce programme. The initiative seeks to impact the lives of 40,000 veterans, and their families, by helping veterans gain SalesForce training, certification and related employment. Demand for SalesForce skills continues to rise; last year alone, 100,000+ jobs requiring Salesforce skills were created. As part of the development and delivery of the VetForce programme, Slalom Consulting partnered with SalesForce last year. In a recent announcement, the fruits of the partnership have been revealed, with the launch of the VetForce community.

Following a three month effort between the partners, which included more than 1,200 hours donated by Slalom to the development of the programme, the VetForce veteran community has been launched. The development of the programme saw experts from Slalom work together with Salesforce developers, BAs, UI/UX designers, and their top technical architect.

The newly developed programme provides a number of key training features to participating veterans, including relating skills and experience from military service to civilian careers, career-specific learning journeys, immersion in Salesforce Trailhead trails, business skills training, partnerships with the Developer and MVP communities, a veteran coaching programme, robust job prep resources, and employer engagement with Salesforce customers and partners. The programme is self-paced through free online and in-person Salesforce training, as well as Salesforce certification, and employment connections to customers and partners in the Salesforce ecosystem.

A spokesperson for SalesForce remarks that: “The new community reflects our continued investment in supporting veterans, and along with the VetForce program and our VSO partners, paves the way for our most successful year ever. We are committed to delivering a program that creates unprecedented success for the veteran community and transforms the lives of 40,000 veterans and their families.”